DeSalvo, 54, was head of U.S. stock sales and trading at Credit Suisse Group AG until last year when the Zurich-based bank merged his business with electronic trading. He'll help recruit more institutional clients for CRT, which trades bonds, mortgages and stocks, the Stamford-based firm said Wednesday in a statement.

"Matt has impressive experience and industry knowledge and will be a strong addition to CRT's management team," Geoffrey Kalish, a principal of Aquiline Capital Partners, said in the statement.

CRT has doubled its staff in the two-and-a-half years since Aguiline, a New York-based private-equity firm, invested $225 million in the brokerage. The firm's revenue rose 94 percent to $175.4 million in 2011 from a year earlier, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. CRT had 300 employees as of the end of 2012, John Nielsen, its general counsel, said in an email.

CRT's stock-trading business ranked 62nd in the U.S. by volume last year, an improvement on its No. 65 ranking in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Credit Suisse traded the fourth-most stock in 2012, the data show.

DeSalvo's departure from the Swiss bank came amid a slump in U.S. stock trading and a long-term shift from handling transactions over the phone to executing them electronically. He joined Credit Suisse in 2006 from Morgan Stanley, where he'd worked since 1985.

"I'm a manager, I'm a leader, and if somebody wants to end up being in the top tier and can use me, I'm sure something will come together," DeSalvo said in an interview at the time.